Music time, a bit late today, and then it’s the weekend! Okay, this is one of those weeks where I’ve gotten literally stuck listening to one artist most of the week, looking for all of their work I can possibly get my hands on, etc. The singer is Matthew Perryman Jones, and he’s just a brilliant songwriter with a pretty voice, so if that’s your thing, you’ll enjoy. Plus, he works with some of my other favorite artists. I will admit, it’s a wee bit ‘Dawson’s Creek,’ but that should not interfere with your ability to enjoy these two songs. So first it’s “Only You,” and then, an incredibly beautiful duet with Katie Herzig, one of my very favorite singers, called “Where The Road Meets the Sun.” Seriously, I have been listening to these songs, and so many more of his, on repeat. Okay, so those songs, then we hit shuffle and find out where we are ten songs later, and then weekend!
1. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ofra Haza, Martin Tillman, Ethan James and The English Chamber Chorus – “Movement VII: Forgiveness” [from The Prayer Cycle]
2. Carl Orff: Carmina Burana – “Uf Dem Anger: Floret silva nobilis” [Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra & Chorus cond. by Kurt Prestel]
3. The Black Angels – “Telephone”
4. Roxette – “Do You Wanna Go The Whole Way?”
5. Kings of Convenience – “I Don’t Know What I Can Save You From”
6. Rufus Wainwright – “Oh What A World”
7. Jay Brannan – “Can’t Have It All”
8. Charlotte Gainsbourg – “IRM”
9. Beirut – “Guyamas Sonora”
10. James Taylor – “Walking Man” (Read More)
Let’s wrap up this quiet week a little bit early and then ring in the new year, okay? We’ll be back to our normal posting schedule next week.
For our starter song this week, I’ve been listening to Joan Osborne’s old stuff, as in, pre-”One of Us” stuff, and this song “What You Gonna Do” done struck me. Joan is a blues singer at heart, and you can really hear it here. Also check out her amazing cover of “Son of a Preacher Man” if you haven’t heard it. So the song, “What You Gonna Do,” hit shuffle, see where we are ten songs later, and then we go. More videos after the jump! Be safe this weekend, everybody!
1. Wicked – Original Broadway Cast Recording – “A Sentimental Man” [sung by Joel Grey]
2. Shout Out Louds – “Man On The Moon” [R.E.M. cover]
3. Amy Millan – “Bruised Ghosts”
4. Brandi Carlile – “Until I Die”
5. Nick Drake – “River Man”
6. The Zinnias – “Kings” [The Zinnias were the high school band of Stephin Merritt, of Magnetic Fields fame]
7. Air Supply – “All Out Of Love”
8. My Morning Jacket – “Lowdown”
9. Neko Case – “Polar Nettles”
10. Katie Herzig – “Oh My Darlin’”
Music time, and I literally have no idea what I want to start the Random Ten with this week. Not a clue. So I guess we’ll start with this really, really great song I rediscovered this week by the Crash Test Dummies, who my mom used to make fun of mercilessly, which, you know, not cool, yo. ”God Shuffled His Feet” is a seriously amazing song and people should recognize. And then, okay fine, it’s Christmas, fine fine fine. My favorite Christmas song is “Little Drummer Boy,” hands down, and my two favorite versions come from Josh Groban and from Tori Amos. Two very, very different takes on the song. So there you have it, Crash Test Dummies, some Christmas, hit shuffle, listen to songs, find out where we are ten songs later, goodbye. Ready set go! More videos after the jump.
N.B. I know our readers are of a lot of faiths or none at all, but if you have a problem with me posting Christmas songs, just know that you’re either supporting Christmas, or you’re part of the War on Christmas! No, I am kidding. Goodness, I’m an atheist. But feel free to post songs that mean something to you this time of the year in the comments and stuff!
I also love Tori’s “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” Totally makes me cry, but you know. So here’s that, too. Then the shuffle.
1. Nine Inch Nails – “Something I Can Never Have”
2. Aimee Mann – “She Really Wants You”
3. Annuals – “Hot Night Hounds”
4. Leonard Bernstein: Arias and Barcarolles – 8. Nachspiel (Postlude)
5. The Cinematic Orchestra ft. Fontella Bass – “Breathe”
6. Jill Sobule – “Someone’s Gonna Break Your Heart”
7. Joan Osborne – “Dracula Moon”
8. RENT, Original Broadway Cast – “Halloween”
9. Lucinda Williams – “Blue”
10. Katie Herzig – “Shovel”
Yay, Katie Herzig again! Seriously, she’s one of my favorite discoveries of the past year. Also remember, just because I don’t post all the videos doesn’t mean the links above aren’t awesome. I’m talking about the Annuals song, and the Nine Inch Nails song [that one's Christmassy], and the Lucinda Williams song.
Music time! Another one of those weeks where I had the song I wanted to start with all planned and ready, but then I started listening to Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” last night and found it so newly poignant that I had to use it. But I’m going to use the other one too, because I’ve been listening to a lot of wintry/holiday music, and I ran across this incredible thing by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson called “Winter Song,” and it’s too beautiful not to post. So “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Winter Song,” hit shuffle on the iTunes Jukebox Machine, see where we are ten songs later, and then I have an art opening to go to, so see ya. More videos after the jump:
1. Brandi Carlile – “Dying Day”
2. Ferraby Lionheart – “A Bell And Tumble”
3. Deer Tick – “Baltimore Blues No. 1″
4. The Posies [ft. Kay Hanley] – “The Glitter Prize”
5. Patty Griffin – “Poor Man’s House”
6. Katie Herzig – “I Want To Belong To You”
7. The Corin Tucker Band – “Doubt”
8. Tori Amos – “Flavor”
9. Cale Parks – “Every Week Ends”
10. Leonard Bernstein – Suite from the opera A Quiet Place: Postlude to Act I
That Brandi Carlile song comes up all the time, but that’s fine. It can come up as much as it wants, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t miss the Katie Herzig song under any circumstances.
This one could also be known as the “wherein iTunes betrays my guilty pleasures, twice” edition, but we’ll get to that in a second. Oh, so embarrassing.
The song I chose to start off this week is “Pancake” by Tori Amos. It’s sort of appropriate to the events of the week, as the Catholic front group NOM runs around crying “victim!” on a hate tour they are perpetuating against gay and lesbian families. Just a little while ago, NOM tweeted a picture of a little girl smiling with a woman who is presumably her mother, with the caption, “This is why we do what we do.” Yeah, right, Gallagher. It’s for the kids. Meanwhile, you and Brian continue to pledge your undying allegiance to a church and a worldview which is best known these days for child rape. But in a way, their caption is honest, because their only hope (and it’s a pie in the sky sort of hope) is that they can brainwash enough children into becoming hateful little brats who fundamentally don’t understand the nature of this free nation we call “America.”
In the song, “pancake” refers to the Eucharist, and it only shows up at the end, in the voice of a priest who attempts to cut off all the very honest observations the woman is making about the church. “I ordered you a pancake.” In other words, shut your mouth and eat this, woman. The charges she’s making against the church are familiar:
Seems like you and your tribe
decided you’d rewrite the law
Segregate the mind
From Body From Soul
You give me yours
I’ll give you mine
cause I can look your God
right in the eye
You give me yours
I’ll give you mine
You used to look my God
right in the eye
I believe in defending
in what we once
stood for
It seems in vogue
to be a closet
misogynist homophobe
Yes, it does.
This version of “Pancake” includes the song’s “lost verse,” which is also oh-so-poignant:
You tear through them fields of cotton
the impressionable ones
I believed in you once,
so did she, she was so young
You turn the man against the land
You turn the woman against her own
You are power, you are ambition
You like ‘em blonde
On Monday, we broke the story of yet another “ex-gay” charlatan who basically uses his platform as a “counselor” to convince young guys to get naked for him, in a perverse attempt to sate his own repressed sexual desires. These stories are awful and shocking, but they’re nothing new. When the JONAH scandal broke and I wrote about it on Wonkette, one of the funniest people on the internet said to me, “You will never want for material.” Show me a mind-numbing, soul-killing patriarchal system, and you can bet you’re going to find lots of live boys and dirty secrets in the wings, waiting for THEIR stories to be told. Oh, and you better bet your sweet ass we’re going to continue to tell them.
Here’s “Pancake.” After that, more videos and evidence of the fact that, in my iTunes library, alongside thousands and thousands of amazing records, are some really, really freaking embarrassing things that, you know, I sort of like, sometimes, when I’m in that mood, SHUT UP.
You could have spared her, oh but no. Messiahs need people dying in their name…
1. New Order – “Regret”
2. How to Dress Well – “Tramodolhydroclorid”
3. Bright Eyes – “Endless Entertainment”
4. 10,000 Maniacs – “Dust Bowl”
5. Joseph Arthur – “Black Lexus”
6. Monsters of Folk – “Man Named Truth”
7. George Michael – “Freedom 90″
8. Garth Brooks & Trisha Yearwood – “In Another’s Eyes”
9. Air Supply – “I Can Wait Forever”
10. Katie Herzig – “Forevermore”
I was thrilled to see Brandi Carlile live for the first time the other night, and if we’re Facebook friends, you know I’ve been posting her songs all week long. I’m kind of on a kick.
One of the coolest moments in the show was when, in this room with a capacity of 1,500 or so, Brandi and her band played this song, “Dying Day,” completely unplugged, without even a mic. Her voice is powerful enough to fill the room even without it. It was easily one of the top five shows I’ve ever been to, and that’s saying a lot. So we’ll base the shuffle off of “Dying Day.” If you watch the video, you can see footage of her performing the song unplugged like she did for us.
If I may, let me also plug the opener, Katie Herzig, who impressed the hell out of us, to the point that I bought her CDs at the show, which I very, very rarely do. She’s on tour all over the place until the end of the year, with Ben Taylor, Mat Kearney, and of course, Brandi Carlile. I’ll throw one of her videos in with the others in the random ten, after the jump.
And, shuffle! Leave yours in the comments, or talk about music, or talk about Justin Bieber (mutually exclusive topics, of course), or whatever else. Open thread.
1. Frou Frou – “Old Piano”
2. Joni Mitchell – “Love or Money”
3. Bright Eyes – “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And Be Loved)”
4. Prince – “Let’s Go Crazy”
5. Tori Amos – “Abnormally Attracted To Sin”
6. Josh Ritter – “You’ve Got The Moon”
7. Sufjan Stevens – “Movement VI – Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges”
8. Wilco – “One Wing”
9. Ra Ra Riot – “Dying Is Fine”
10. Beirut – “The Penalty”
